Monday, July 17, 2017

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like-minded sidekicks by exploring the symbols all around us—together.

Source of Inspiration

Facebook
wisdom

Facebook: I find somany inspirational posts there; it’s almost like going to a cyber chapel for
morning meditation. Better yet, you can bring your coffee and wear your
jammies.

Sometimes I save posts that really move me.
Other times, I remember the gist but forget the exact wording. Here’s my
paraphrase of an idea I can’t get out of my mind lately.

Everything you’re going through right now,
you created to get everything you ever asked for.

All of us, at one time or another, have felt
like we’re being beaten up by a cruel world. Once we’re done being a
victim—ever—you asked for it conveys a
profound truth. The most healing and growth I’ve ever experienced has come
through challenging times. The road to deep healing and fulfillment seems to be
lined with its share of rough patches and potholes. Not always, but people can
be really lazy. When everything is hunky dory, who doesn’t want to skate a
little—OK, maybe a lot—rather than put energy into examining and clearing those
core issues? Better to leave well enough alone.

You
asked for it is often misinterpreted as blaming the sufferer for his or her
own suffering. Suffering is real, and while walking around in physical or
emotional pain, no one needs shame on top of it. That’s putting the accent on
the wrong half of the sentence, the “going through” instead of the results that
the adversity course offers at the finish line. For many of us, suffering is so
deeply embedded into our spiritual experience; it’s hard to give up guilt and
self-blame as knee-jerk reactions. One of the things I found most repugnant
about my 1950s Catholic upbringing was a fixation on the suffering of Jesus,
sometimes in the most gory and detailed terms. I always preferred to focus on
the Resurrection.

You asked
for it simply implies that our
consciousness is so strong and aligned with something bigger; we have at some
level accepted a cosmic curriculum for growing. The idea that you have either
a conscious or subconscious role in changing your experience is not shameful;
it’s empowering. It doesn’t make you bad; it makes you captain of your own
ship, willing to test your survival skills in life’s storms in order to become
more. Remember why you asked for it: to
get everything you ever wanted. You’re in process. The completed picture is
not yet in sight.

This path isn’t for the faint of heart, even
for its rich rewards. I remember how quickly I learned as a kid not to
bad-mouth and exclude others once I got a taste of my own medicine. Other
lessons took much longer. Several enormous betrayals took decades for me to get
over, much less to arrive at a healing state of forgiveness. At that, I forgave
the parties involved a whole lot earlier than I forgave myself. (Who hasn’t
thought or uttered the words, what was I
thinking? Or how could I have been so
stupid?)

From the betrayals, I also learned the
importance of saying what I really feel, no matter how afraid I am of losing
the object of my affections. So much would have turned out differently if it
weren’t for wrong assumptions in some cases on my part—and that foolishness of
youth, not standing in my own truth for fear of the consequences.

My brush with cancer (it turned out to be a
false alarm) had every hallmark of what a health scare can teach us—to embrace
life every minute we’re lucky to be here and to consider how we’ll handle the
ending of our own story. One thing I never expected was learning how many
people love me and were willing to give their time, tenderness and resources to
see me well again. I remember it was the first time a dear friend said I love you. He’s the same cynic that
always kidded me about being “light and fluffy.”

In the more recent decades of my life, I can
honestly say that despite my devotion and willingness to do it from the get-go,
I find it hard to believe that I would have “ordered” a husband with health
problems. Now that they have slowly progressed to the point that I am a
caregiver, I sometimes wonder why I seem to have stuffed so much learning into
one incarnation. Through this blessing/trial, I have learned how to take care
of myself in ways I never thought possible. No one can take good care of
another without taking excellent care of him- or herself. This necessity sent
me to Mindful Self-Compassion training and catalyzed a daily meditation
practice, one I have been trying to incorporate into my life since 1977. It has
exposed my personal reactions to stress and allowed me to alter them. I’m
learning to accept what-is which makes benefiting from the experience possible.
Then there’s the experience of increased trust and intimacy. That’s just a
sampler of my course in progress.

“It’s All
Good”

There’s a Pollyanna way of using this
expression, but there’s also a metaphysical way that can change your life.
Years ago I started looking for the good in every situation I encountered. Not
denying the crap, mind you, but embracing the idea that the universe is
friendly, supportive and here to guide me along in my growth. Once I embraced
that idea fully, life started to really work. It still does: cuts, bruises and
all. Pain gets our attention. Sometimes we’ll do anything to end it or heal it,
including change.

Astrology
Bits

If you’ve got one of those birth charts with
personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter) interacting
closely with a lots of outer planets (Pluto, Uranus, Neptune and Chiron, what I
call the PUNCs), you’re here for an advanced course in personal and planetary
evolution. Transits involving those planets only ratchet up the game in certain
timeframes. Rather than complaining about what these giants of change “do” to
you, start thinking about what they do “for” you. Navigate to your next
destination with the pluck of Indiana Jones and the assurance that nothing in
that jungle out there is beyond being a stepping stone to greater good.

This
Week’s Exercise

Think about a current challenge. Make notes about what you’re learning
from it. If this is hard for you, imagine or ask what your favorite
cup-half-full friend would say. Do this for as long as it takes to convince you
that Love’s on your side.

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What is a Radical Virgo?

To learn the characteristics of a Radical Virgo, read Joyce Mason’s article, “The Radical Virgo.” In a nutshell, these Virgos are not the old fussbudget stereotype—no Felix Ungers or Adrian Monks here. Radical Virgos have the potential to change the world through their ability to develop and discover their unique pattern, becoming true human beings—not “human doings.” Radical Virgos give service in a whole new way by contributing to their community and world what they were designed to give. When we each do that, we have made heaven on earth. It’s like having all the cogs in the great wheel of creation turning like they were just oiled!

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With the inception of the mixed media PsychKicks posts, Joyce is focusing her writing on all the tools in her medicine bag, astrology being just one of them. The more we know; the more we grow.The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each of us is here for. ~ Oscar Wilde

About "The Radical Virgo"

Joyce Mason has Sun in the last degree of Virgo, three planets in Libra, Taurus Rising and a Capricorn Moon. She's a "PUNC," or a person with a prominence of the outer planets Pluto, Uranus, Neptune--add bridging and healing Chiron. (See her Outerplanetary People series for more on PUNCs.) Joyce is often mistaken for an Aquarius/ Sagittarius blend. Even if you don’t speak astrology, that makes sense on some symbolic level because they both end in “ius.” She believes that I and Us are one in the same—and celebrates the human spirit in which we’re all joined.

First and foremost a writer, Joyce was a consulting astrologer, tarot reader, dreamworker, and flower essence practitioner for 25 years. Her astrological specialties are the sign of Virgo and the centaur planet, Chiron. She writes on these and many other topics. Read her complete bio and astrology articles on her Writer Joyce Mason website.

The name The Radical Virgo comes from an article Joyce wrote in The Mountain Astrologer many years ago. It also evolved into a personal nickname.

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